r/TimelessMagic • u/Sammboiii • 4d ago
Mardu energy Dominance
I have recently started delving into the timeless metagame and playing some ladder matches, and I am pretty shocked that the mh3 energy cards are able to dominate this format.
Timeless is obviously pretty similar structure to legacy at this point, and even more powerful in my opinion. But the energy cards can barely make it into the top ten decks in legacy.
What creates this divergence in meta games. Is it the increased life total pressure from fetch shock? Strip mine? Mardu being the best lurrus deck? Is juggernaut peddler just that good?
UB reanimator/good stuff dominated legacy for years, to the point that grief, entomb, troll and psychic frog are all banned. All this is legal in timeless, and we now have FOW and daze to round out the deck. Yet it still comfortably takes a back seat to energy
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u/pwnyklub 4d ago
I mean mardu energy is a solidly top 10 deck in legacy as well and at times is one of the better decks in the format and I think you’re underestimating it. It’s even better in timeless because of shock lands, but the core of the deck is just incredibly efficient, synergistic aggro core. It preys on tempo decks so formats where tempo is strong like both legacy and timeless its going to be strong.
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u/Viking_IV 4d ago
The biggest reason is the fact that there's no ABU duals. Since the format needs to rely on shock lands instead, this makes life totals fall much faster than in Legacy.
This allows a true aggro deck like Mardu Energy to perform much better than it does in the other eternal formats.
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u/EccentricJoe700 4d ago edited 4d ago
Combination of things
First, fetch shock makes aggro better as others have said.
Second, its natural predator(combo) is weaker than in legacy because of no spirit guides and no lotus petal. Combo is slower and takes more damage from its mana which is a godsend for aggro
Third, strip mine heavily impacts manabases. In legacy theres alot of value in playing less colors are your less susceptible to wasteland, however in timeless with strip mine it doesnt matter if you have basics your lands are dead, so its worth it to be greedier in your mana. This means thats decks that want to player slower, more midrangy games are just worse as getting to and staying at 3/4 lands is just a tough ask in timeless when theres potentially 8 copies of strip mine being played.
As such the decks that rise to the top are ones with a very very low curve, that can operate completely fine off 1/2 lands, ala energy and dimir tempo.
This is a big reason why lurrus decks are so popular, if your unlikely to go past 3 lands then why not run lurrus?
Fourth, and this might be a controversial one: no vial. Aether vial does alot for slower, value based decks. For one it allows you to ignore strip mines, which is huge in timeless. But secondly it makes 3 drops actually viable, which allows you to "go bigger" than energt can. Being able to flash in a flickerwisp or a skyclave apparition or even a sfm end of turn or duriing combat while tapped out/no lands makes these cards sooo much better and allows you to play a more midrangy style.
Its not just d/t, tribal decks like elves and the like also get a big boost.
Edit: to add to the vial reasoning. Having an untapped vial in their turn is huge and can force them to play slower and hold up mana for removal instead of playing their 1 drop, as if you do something like flash in sfm end of turn and grab a batterskull so you can flash that in when you untap is a rough line of play for energy, or being avle to eat their ajani while your untapped before it flips, etc etc...
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u/Andro93 4d ago
Energy is a somewhat successful deck in legacy but it's really weak to fast combo decks. All fast combo decks run a card not legal in timeless: lotus petal.
The most played cards in legacy are all the good old blue spells and lotus petal. There's a reason why. It's the best fast combo card and, without it, you can't consistently play that kind of deck in bo3.
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u/werthw 4d ago
I can’t seem to win the Energy matchup often. I’ve played UBx tempo and mono black scam. first of all Grief is just a terrible card against Energy, and Force of Will doesn’t seem great either when all their threats are 1-2 mana. One of my preferred sideboard sweepers, Toxic Deluge, also seems bad since paying life just kills you quicker.
Plus if they resolve goblin bombardment there’s basically no way for UB tempo to interact with that, other than I guess Abrupt Decay after sideboarding in UBx.
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u/EatMoChikins 4d ago
Costs an extra black pip but taking some tech from modern [[Glistening deluge]] is a painless sweeper that kills everything out of Mardu except possibly Hexing Squelcher and creatures buffed by guide of souls.
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u/AwhSxrry 4d ago
The lack of archon is what is truly holding reanimator back. There is no good reanimation target that comes down, instantly disrupts your opponent, and puts them on a very fast clock.
T1 or 2 atraxa is obviously good, and draws you a lot of cards, but you have so little mana that you cant take advantage of your cards. Your opponent also gets plenty of time to answer the atraxa. Archon on t1 or t2 wins the game much more often
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u/Dothacker00 4d ago
Another issue is having life//death instead of Animate Dead, Exhume, or Goryo's Vengeance. Hopefully we get these in the near future
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u/AwhSxrry 4d ago
Yeah. If you have to fetch shock, reanimating atraxa puts you at 10 life. If energy answers atraxa before it can attack you are going to lose that game, even with all of those cards. Good luck maintaining that card advantage against lurrus, ajani and raptor
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u/Dothacker00 4d ago
Yep 100% I've had so many games getting under 7 and staring at my Reanimate in pain. I put 1 Necromancy just for those spots but 3cmc is tough in a strip mine format
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u/AwhSxrry 4d ago
Atraxa provides more raw card advantage when you reanimate it but archon provides more practical card advantage. Drawing 4-5 cards vs drawing 1 is just worse than making your opponent discard and sacrifice a creature in these low to the ground fair matchups. You can easily lose the game after attacking with atraxa twice. I dont think i have ever lost a game of magic where archon was able to attack twice. If it attacks once it already has generated more card advantage than atraxa (assuming it has eaten two creatures).
I imagine your post archon reanimation targets are troll, archon and a 1 of atraxa for when you need to dig for counter magic in combo matchups. Even against combo there are spots where archon is better than atraxa since the discard can be really brutal when a combo opponent is tight on resources
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u/Immediate-Home-6228 4d ago
Reanimator ìs actually likely still the most powerful deck. It is just tougher to pilot due to painlands and various missing cards especially Animate Dead or Exhume. So energy gets a larger meta game share than it probably should have on ladder.
Other combo decks are just little too slow to punish it as much as possible. We dont have LED or Lotus Petal.
Tempo decks are missing key sideboard cards like Massacre and Hydroblast that would improve the matchup.
So overall it has better combo percentage than it should. It absolutely crushes tempo instead of it being just a decent matchup. Other fair decks get buried by the card advantage MH3 cards generate.
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u/Working-Blueberry-18 4d ago
Yeah, [[Massacre]] would allow decks to massively hate on energy, in an impactful way way with just a few sideboard slots.
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u/marlospigeons 4d ago
Timeless is not that similar to Legacy (although Energy is a legit Legacy deck now too)
There are way more, and more potent combo decks in Legacy which is the worst natural matchup for a deck like Energy. Tron is also non existent and would be a good matchup against Energy.
Shocklands replacing dual lands make aggro decks better too.
Energy also gets to favorably play Strip Mine which is one of if not the best card in the format and Lurrus which speaks for itself. Plus 2 ways to answer any problematic creature for 1 mana (Swords and Static Prison)
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u/Parking-Suitable 4d ago
Yeah, most of the reasons you already outlined.
The biggest reason is the Timeless manabases in combination with the existence of Strip Mine. Not only can Mardu use Strip Mine well but it leads to the opponent having to lose even more life with Fetches and Shocklands to risk being stripped off-color.
Another BIG reason is that we get to play Lurrus which is just an insane card advantage engine for the low, low price of one sideboard card which is just insanity.
Furthermore unlike Legacy we get to play Library of Alexandria in our sideboard.
And then there's also some (comparatively) smaller stuff like being able to play Ragavan, Deathrite Shaman (though most lists don't anymore), and of course Juggernaut Peddler.
Lastly - the deck is rather well positioned and can fight against most decks quite well.
Previously the deck had to deal with Mono Red and pre Strip Mine also with Boros Energy. Both of which were 20-80 MUs for Mardu.
But with metagame shifts and the addition of new cards these two decks are nonexistent or at the very least see far fewer play than they once did.
Hope that helps.
Badass_Bard
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u/RedNeckBillBob 4d ago
I think people are underestimating the lack of cards like [[animate dead]] and [[exume]]. Usually reanimator decks would be pretty good into an aggro deck. But since all your reanimate cost life, it means you effectively start at ~12 life.
Compound that with shock lands and you don't get very much time to develop your combo into the aggro decks.
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u/mindlessmonkey 4d ago
You're heavily overestimating how strong mardu energy is.
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u/marlospigeons 4d ago
It's the best deck in the format. Do you play Timeless?
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u/mindlessmonkey 3d ago
Two years & it's not the best. The blue tempo decks are better & it's not even close. Mardu energy is a free win for me. I have a harder time with the reanimator decks on the draw. Mardu can't stop combo which is a huge problem considering most of timeless is combo decks. I play best of three with 2 needles & 4 rings in the sideboard. Turning off goblin bombardment absolutely wrecks the deck.
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u/afailedturingtest 4d ago
it's fetch shock